Thanks to Keri at Keri Recommends and Dorraine Bennet at Dori Reads for adding wonderful rays of sunshine to my day and, over the last little while, nominating this blog for a SUNSHINE AWARD! That's definitely the way to brighten up a foggy January! Here are the (flexible) rules: 1. Acknowledge the nominating bloggers 2.… Continue reading January Sunshine
View from my writing window Rectangles and lines of nonfiction diagonal, horizontal, vertical paragraphs of roof, window, drainpipe Venetian sentences just a little off with the siding (a bit of parallelism would even that out) Eave trough is a green algae poem (if my window opened on the near side I would revise it with… Continue reading View from my writing window (#poetryatwork)
Can you believe we're almost halfway through January! By now those wonderful New Year's Resolutions have been tested, perhaps broken (if you made any). And what about writing goals? I always start the year full of bubbly optimism. The year is new. It's a clean page. I can begin again. The possibilities are endless. Writing… Continue reading My (penciled) writing goals for 2014
In His Shop In his shop Daddy improvised like a jazz musician. Virtuoso of rivets, solder, screws, he repaired hinges with leather, lengthened a steering shaft for the tractor-drawn binder, braced wobbly chairs with welding rods, reincarnated metal seats into lawn furniture. Lightning from his welder like brain synapses crackled creations into being. Pounding hammer,… Continue reading In His Shop
It's Christmas Eve, the time our thoughts turn to all things holy—and presents! How crass. But how real, especially if you're a kid. A few weeks ago when I was cleaning out some papers, I came across a picture book I wrote and illustrated way back when. It was one of my course requirements at… Continue reading A Child’s Christmas in Saskatchewan
Black Friday Blues The one-day sale inflated my morning with a blast of urgency. Trying to figure out how to adapt the thing I wanted to my home my home to it had me darting about all day frantic as a balloon losing air. Now I and the bag with my return are lying limp… Continue reading Black Friday Blues
The Custodian The coffee cups we take into the sanctuary she sees as spots to scrub from the carpet later. On youth night she braces herself for toilets plugged with paper towel sinks clogged with toilet paper. The inconspicuous, numberless door in the hallway we’ve never really noticed— she has the key to it could… Continue reading The Custodian
John MacArthur's Strange Fire Conference of just over a week ago was a bit of a shaker to the evangelical culture of North America and England. In it MacArthur and his colleagues at Grace To You Church in California argued, based on their cessationist beliefs (the interpretation of the Bible that says that the Holy… Continue reading How the #StrangeFire conference confirms my continuationism
The last few weeks have felt unusually busy. When that happens, I find it hard to get in the poem-writing zone. Last weekend was a case in point. It was Canadian Thanksgiving. We had the kids and grandkids here for a visit. It was such fun, but there was hardly a minute left over for… Continue reading The grandma poet
Fall Semester I plod toward the culmination of a summer of study and planning lugging a stone-boat of handouts, lessons and lectures. Responsibilities blinker me from distraction. Urged and directed by the reins of conscientiousness it’s Giddy-up and Go till November when, unbuckled from this harness I again get to frolic in the meadow of… Continue reading Fall Semester
Violet Nesdoly 